In Killing Commendatore, a 30-something portrait painter in Tokyo is abandoned by his wife and finds himself holed up in the mountain home of a famous artist, Tomohiko Amada. When he discovers a previously unseen painting in the attic, he unintentionally opens a circle of mysterious circumstances. To close it, he must complete a journey that involves a mysterious ringing bell, a two-foot-high physical manifestation of an Idea, a dapper businessman who lives across the valley, a precocious 13-year-old girl, a Nazi assassination attempt during World War II in Vienna....

5 out of 5 stars

A Masterpiece and A Good Novel To Start

By
Elif Kaya
on
10-18-18

South of the Border, West of the Sun

A Novel

By:
Haruki Murakami,
Philip Gabriel (translator)

Narrated by:
Eric Loren

Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
374

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
326

Story

4 out of 5 stars
329

Born in 1951 in an affluent Tokyo suburb, Hajime - beginning in Japanese - has arrived at middle age wanting for almost nothing. The postwar years have brought him a fine marriage, two daughters, and an enviable career as the proprietor of two jazz clubs. Yet a nagging sense of inauthenticity about his success threatens Hajime's happiness. And a boyhood memory of a wise, lonely girl named Shimamoto clouds his heart.

4 out of 5 stars

A River of Unmindfulness

By
Darwin8u
on
10-12-13

After Dark

By:
Haruki Murakami

Narrated by:
Janet Song

Length: 5 hrs and 44 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
299

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
207

Story

4 out of 5 stars
209

Here is a short, sleek novel of encounters, set in Tokyo during the witching hours between midnight and dawn, and every bit as gripping as Haruki Murakami's masterworks
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and
Kafka on the Shore. At its center are two sisters: Eri, a fashion model slumbering her way into oblivion, and Mari, a young student soon led from solitary reading at an anonymous Denny's toward people whose lives are radically different from her own.

3 out of 5 stars

Intriguing book, Poor Narration

By
Ellen Clary
on
07-27-08

Sputnik Sweetheart

By:
Haruki Murakami

Narrated by:
Adam Sims

Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
230

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
211

Story

4 out of 5 stars
212

Haruki Murakami, the internationally best-selling author of
Norwegian Wood and
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, plunges us into an urbane Japan of jazz bars, coffee shops, Jack Kerouac, and the Beatles to tell this story of a tangled triangle of uniquely unrequited loves.

>A college student, identified only as "K" falls in love with his classmate, Sumire. But devotion to an untidy writerly life precludes her from any personal commitments until she meets Miu, an older and much more sophisticated businesswoman.

Across seven tales, Haruki Murakami brings his powers of observation to bear on the lives of men who, in their own ways, find themselves alone. Here are vanishing cats and smoky bars, lonely hearts and mysterious women, baseball and the Beatles, woven together to tell stories that speak to us all. Marked by the same wry humor that has defined his entire body of work, in this collection Murakami has crafted another contemporary classic.

With the same deadpan mania and genius for dislocation that he brought to his internationally acclaimed novels
A Wild Sheep Chase and
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Haruki Murakami makes this collection of stories a determined assault on the normal. A man sees his favorite elephant vanish into thin air; a newlywed couple suffers attacks of hunger that drive them to hold up a McDonald's in the middle of the night; and a young woman discovers that she has become irresistible to a little green monster who burrows up through her backyard.

In Killing Commendatore, a 30-something portrait painter in Tokyo is abandoned by his wife and finds himself holed up in the mountain home of a famous artist, Tomohiko Amada. When he discovers a previously unseen painting in the attic, he unintentionally opens a circle of mysterious circumstances. To close it, he must complete a journey that involves a mysterious ringing bell, a two-foot-high physical manifestation of an Idea, a dapper businessman who lives across the valley, a precocious 13-year-old girl, a Nazi assassination attempt during World War II in Vienna....

5 out of 5 stars

A Masterpiece and A Good Novel To Start

By
Elif Kaya
on
10-18-18

South of the Border, West of the Sun

A Novel

By:
Haruki Murakami,
Philip Gabriel (translator)

Narrated by:
Eric Loren

Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
374

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
326

Story

4 out of 5 stars
329

Born in 1951 in an affluent Tokyo suburb, Hajime - beginning in Japanese - has arrived at middle age wanting for almost nothing. The postwar years have brought him a fine marriage, two daughters, and an enviable career as the proprietor of two jazz clubs. Yet a nagging sense of inauthenticity about his success threatens Hajime's happiness. And a boyhood memory of a wise, lonely girl named Shimamoto clouds his heart.

4 out of 5 stars

A River of Unmindfulness

By
Darwin8u
on
10-12-13

After Dark

By:
Haruki Murakami

Narrated by:
Janet Song

Length: 5 hrs and 44 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
299

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
207

Story

4 out of 5 stars
209

Here is a short, sleek novel of encounters, set in Tokyo during the witching hours between midnight and dawn, and every bit as gripping as Haruki Murakami's masterworks
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and
Kafka on the Shore. At its center are two sisters: Eri, a fashion model slumbering her way into oblivion, and Mari, a young student soon led from solitary reading at an anonymous Denny's toward people whose lives are radically different from her own.

3 out of 5 stars

Intriguing book, Poor Narration

By
Ellen Clary
on
07-27-08

Sputnik Sweetheart

By:
Haruki Murakami

Narrated by:
Adam Sims

Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
230

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
211

Story

4 out of 5 stars
212

Haruki Murakami, the internationally best-selling author of
Norwegian Wood and
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, plunges us into an urbane Japan of jazz bars, coffee shops, Jack Kerouac, and the Beatles to tell this story of a tangled triangle of uniquely unrequited loves.

>A college student, identified only as "K" falls in love with his classmate, Sumire. But devotion to an untidy writerly life precludes her from any personal commitments until she meets Miu, an older and much more sophisticated businesswoman.

Across seven tales, Haruki Murakami brings his powers of observation to bear on the lives of men who, in their own ways, find themselves alone. Here are vanishing cats and smoky bars, lonely hearts and mysterious women, baseball and the Beatles, woven together to tell stories that speak to us all. Marked by the same wry humor that has defined his entire body of work, in this collection Murakami has crafted another contemporary classic.

With the same deadpan mania and genius for dislocation that he brought to his internationally acclaimed novels
A Wild Sheep Chase and
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Haruki Murakami makes this collection of stories a determined assault on the normal. A man sees his favorite elephant vanish into thin air; a newlywed couple suffers attacks of hunger that drive them to hold up a McDonald's in the middle of the night; and a young woman discovers that she has become irresistible to a little green monster who burrows up through her backyard.

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

By:
Haruki Murakami

Narrated by:
Kirby Heyborne

Length: 14 hrs and 23 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
128

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
119

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
120

Across two parallel narratives, Murakami draws listeners into a mind-bending universe in which Lauren Bacall, Bob Dylan, a split-brained data processor, a deranged scientist, his shockingly undemure granddaughter, and various thugs, librarians, and subterranean monsters collide to dazzling effect. What emerges is a novel that is at once hilariously funny and a deeply serious meditation on the nature and uses of the mind.

5 out of 5 stars

Highly recommend

By
Amazon Customer
on
07-23-18

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage

By:
Haruki Murakami,
Philip Gabriel (translator)

Narrated by:
Bruce Locke

Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
1,051

Performance

4 out of 5 stars
943

Story

4 out of 5 stars
943

The new novel - a book that sold more than a million copies the first week it went on sale in Japan - from the internationally acclaimed author, his first since
IQ84. Here he gives us the remarkable story of Tsukuru Tazaki, a young man haunted by a great loss; of dreams and nightmares that have unintended consequences for the world around us; and of a journey into the past that is necessary to mend the present. It is a story of love, friendship, and heartbreak for the ages.

4 out of 5 stars

Good, brooding book, terrible reading

By
Elias F Ponvert
on
06-12-15

Norwegian Wood

By:
Haruki Murakami

Narrated by:
John Chancer

Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
832

Performance

4 out of 5 stars
746

Story

4 out of 5 stars
749

This stunning and elegiac novel by the author of the internationally acclaimed
Wind-Up Bird Chronicle has sold over four million copies in Japan and is now available to American audiences for the first time. It is sure to be a literary event.

5 out of 5 stars

A Beautiful, Wistful...

By
Douglas
on
02-18-16

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman

By:
Haruki Murakami

Narrated by:
Patrick Lawlor,
Ellen Archer

Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
83

Performance

4 out of 5 stars
74

Story

4 out of 5 stars
75

From the surreal to the mundane, these stories exhibit his ability to transform the full range of human experience in ways that are instructive, surprising, and relentlessly entertaining. Here are animated crows, a criminal monkey, and an iceman, as well as the dreams that shape us and the things we might wish for. Whether during a chance reunion in Italy, a romantic exile in Greece, a holiday in Hawaii, or in the grip of everyday life, Murakami's characters confront grievous loss, or sexuality, or the glow of a firefly, or the impossible distances between those who ought to be closest of all.

5 out of 5 stars

Fantastic, just like how all Murakami books are

By
Maggie McMeekin
on
05-05-15

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

A Novel

By:
Haruki Murakami

Narrated by:
Rupert Degas

Length: 26 hrs and 11 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
2,731

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
2,493

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
2,494

In a Tokyo suburb a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wife's missing cat.... Soon he finds himself looking for his wife as well in a netherworld that lies beneath the placid surface of Tokyo. As these searches intersect, Okada encounters a bizarre group of allies and antagonists: a psychic prostitute; a malevolent yet mediagenic politician; a cheerfully morbid 16-year-old-girl; and an aging war veteran who has been permanently changed by the hideous things he witnessed during Japan's forgotten campaign in Manchuria.

4 out of 5 stars

Wonderful book, flawed narration.

By
REBECCA
on
02-08-14

Kafka on the Shore

By:
Haruki Murakami

Narrated by:
Sean Barrett,
Oliver Le Sueur

Length: 19 hrs and 8 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
2,114

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
1,925

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
1,918

With
Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami gives us a novel every bit as ambitious and expansive as
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, which has been acclaimed both here and around the world for its uncommon ambition and achievement, and whose still-growing popularity suggests that it will be read and admired for decades to come.

5 out of 5 stars

Love it!

By
bleadof
on
10-04-16

Underground

The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche

By:
Haruki Murakami

Narrated by:
Feodor Chin,
Ian Anthony Dale,
Janet Song

Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
144

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
133

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
133

On a clear spring day in 1995, five members of a religious cult unleashed poison gas on the Tokyo subway system. In attempt to discover why, Haruki Murakmi talks to the people who lived through the catastrophe, and in so doing lays bare the Japanese psyche. As he discerns the fundamental issues that led to the attack, Murakami paints a clear vision of an event that could occur anytime, anywhere.

3 out of 5 stars

Just as you breathe, you dream your story

By
Darwin8u
on
08-26-15

After the Quake

Stories

By:
Haruki Murakami

Narrated by:
Rupert Degas,
Teresa Gallagher,
Adam Sims

Length: 4 hrs and 20 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
87

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
77

Story

4 out of 5 stars
78

The six stories in Haruki Murakami’s mesmerizing collection are set at the time of the catastrophic 1995 Kobe earthquake, when Japan became brutally aware of the fragility of its daily existence. But the upheavals that afflict Murakami’s characters are even deeper and more mysterious, emanating from a place where the human meets the inhuman.

A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver's enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 - "Q" is for "question mark". A world that bears a question....

5 out of 5 stars

I've never read a book quite like this one

By
Joey
on
04-23-12

What I Talk about When I Talk about Running

A Memoir

By:
Haruki Murakami

Narrated by:
Ray Porter

Length: 4 hrs and 23 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
1,962

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
1,537

Story

4 out of 5 stars
1,540

From the best-selling author of
Kafka on the Shore comes this rich and revelatory memoir about writing and running and the integral impact both have made on his life. Equal parts training log, travelogue, and reminiscence, this revealing memoir covers Murakami's four-month preparation for the 2005 New York City Marathon. Settings range from Tokyo, where he once shared the course with an Olympian, to the Charles River in Boston, among young women who outpace him.

5 out of 5 stars

It is what it says it is

By
Rick
on
03-10-09

Ball Lightning

By:
Cixin Liu,
Joel Martinsen - translator

Narrated by:
Feodor Chin

Length: 12 hrs and 12 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
365

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
337

Story

4 out of 5 stars
335

When Chen’s parents are incinerated before his eyes by a blast of ball lightning, he devotes his life to cracking the secret of the mysterious natural phenomenon. His search takes him to stormy mountaintops, an experimental military weapons lab, and an old Soviet science station. The more he learns, the more he comes to realize that ball lightning is just the tip of a new frontier in particle physics. Although Chen’s quest provides a purpose for his life, his reasons for chasing his elusive quarry come into conflict with soldiers and scientists who have motives of their own.

5 out of 5 stars

Excellent read.

By
SRS
on
08-23-18

The Strange Library

By:
Haruki Murakami,
Ted Goossen (translator)

Narrated by:
Kirby Heyborne

Length: 1 hr and 1 min

Unabridged

Overall

4 out of 5 stars
111

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
99

Story

4 out of 5 stars
97

From internationally acclaimed author Haruki Murakami - a fantastical short novel about a boy imprisoned in a nightmarish library. A lonely boy, a mysterious girl, and a tormented sheep man plot their escape from the nightmarish library of internationally acclaimed, best-selling Haruki Murakami's wild imagination.

3 out of 5 stars

It was okay

By
Manuel
on
09-18-16

Publisher's Summary

In the spring of 1978, a young Haruki Murakami sat down at his kitchen table and began to write. The result: two remarkable short novels - Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973 - that launched the career of one of the most acclaimed authors of our time.

These powerful, at times surreal, works about two young men coming of age - the unnamed narrator and his friend the Rat - are stories of loneliness, obsession, and eroticism. They bear all the hallmarks of Murakami's later books and form the first two-thirds, with A Wild Sheep Chase, of the Trilogy of the Rat.

Widely available in English for the first time ever, newly translated, and featuring a new introduction by Murakami himself, Wind/Pinball gives us a fascinating insight into a great writer's beginnings.

A Must For Murakami Fans

The promise of the writer he was to become are evident in these two novellas. It's fun to see that the elements of a Murakami story -- loneliness, sudden death, mysterious women, etc. -- were present from the beginning. These are his first works, and it shows There's an uneven quality to the stories. That said, Heyborne does a brilliant job and this was a very entertaining listen.

If you've read one of Murakami's more celebrated novels and weren't that impressed, I think you should probably pass on this. If you're a fan, though, it's a must listen.

FOR AMUSEMENT ONLY: Extra Ball at 600,000 points

My first exposure to Murakami was in my early college years. I checked out A Wild Sheep Chase (Boku #3) one summer from a military library and after I read it, but before I returned it, the library had mysteriously burned down. I'm not sure if I still owe the library a late fee or not. I had no way to return the book, and after reading it, I didn't ever want to. I saved it from the fire. I saved it from oblivion. It was now mine.

Both 'Hear the Wind Sing' and 'Pinball, 1973' are novellas best left to Murakami completists. There are better novels to start with and unless you are going to read more than ten Murakami novels, I wouldn't begin here. Start with 'Wild Sheep Chase' or 'Dance Dance Dance', or 'Norwegian Wood'.

\ * / Hear the Wind Sing/Boku #1 \ * /

"How can those who live in the light of day possibly comprehend the depth of night?"― Nietzche

A nice first novel(la) with most all the known Murakami tropes already stirred in. There is music (pop, jazz, classical) with specific references to actual pressings. There are: cats, bars, whiskey, birds, alienation and needy women. Murakami ventures into existential philosophy and Western literature (both real and fake). It is all there. Things that would later pop up again and again in his later, stronger novels.

It isn't a river that flows very fast.

This isn't a page turner.

It is Gyokuro tea-steeping slowly. It is watching the stray leaves spiral to the center in a cracked, stoneware cup. It is the light and shadows dancing on you, while you sit in the shade watching people walk in and out of view. It is relaxing, interesting, and soon all you have left is the tasseography of a cold cup.

\ * / Pinball, 1973/Boku #2 \ * /

“So many dreams, so many disappointments, so many promises. And in the end, they all just vanish.” ― Haruki Murakami, Pinball, 1973

Like Murakami's first novel 'Hear the Wind Sing' (Boku #1), 'Pinball, 1973' (Boku #2) contains many of those elements that would define Murakami's fiction in the future. In someways this novel is both a story of loneliness and a love story between the protagonist and a specific Pinball machine. 'Hear the Wind Sing' seems to show early signs of Norwegian Wood, but 'Pinball, 1973' seems to be an early protonovel that would develop into Murakami's strange, dream-like later novels.

\ * / \ * / \ * /

If you check out Murakami and the bookstore or library burns down, watch out, you won't be able to rest until you've stalked every novel and read every page.

too young for me

I love Haruki Murakami's writing. It appears I like his later works better than his younger ones. These stories are OK, but at 70, they did not appeal to me. Youth's follies and interests are no longer what capture's my interests.

Good if you're looking for a Murikami fix

Was Wind/Pinball worth the listening time?

The was definitely worth a listen, but only if you are already a Murakami fan. It was fun and weird, but would ultimately be unsatisfying by itself. I listened to the other books in the "series" first, it would be fun to listen to them again now with a little more of the Rat's back story.

Absolutely NOT B-list Stories

I'm a bit perplexed why some people write off these freshman efforts as somehow lesser than the rest of Murakami's body of work. True, they're a little rough around the edges when compared to some of his later novels, but there are plenty of popular/successful authors who have never written anything near the caliber of Hear the Wind Sing or Pinball 1973. What's more, they aren't nearly as self-important as some of Murakami's later works, giving them a raw yet honest tone.

Despite their being labeled as books one and two in the Rat series, I'd sooner compare Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball 1973 to the author's short stories, rather than his full-length novels. In many ways, this makes Wind/Pinball more accessible than some of my favorites, namely Kafka on the Shore, The Windup Bird Chronicle, and 1Q84. To that effect, I'd almost recommend Wind/Pinball as a starting point for anyone interested in his fiction. Based on how they react, I could easily steer them toward Norwegian Wood, Wild Sheep Chase, After Dark, or one of Murakami's short story collections.

By the way, here's where I'm coming from: I'm a fan, but not a "fan boy." I've read and reread nearly everything Haruki Murakami has had translated into English. I love the man's work, but not without criticism. For instance, while Kafka on the Shore rates among my top ten favorite novels, I was positively stunned by how bad Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage was. So it's not like I think the author can do no wrong, I just happen to think these novellas are somewhat underrated.

If you are a Murakami Fan

And I am. So, I am going to say time well spent, but I can't say it was great. Overall experience for me was pretty good because Murakami's style speaks to me. I was captivated by 1Q84. I have to say, there were some moments in these books which made me think and stick with me. I may even listen to them again. However, when I compare to other works, I have to give this a lower rating.

Two Short Stories

"Wind/Pinball" are two short stories from Haruki Murakami's early years. I'm very grateful that these stories got translated into English and into audiobook. They could had easily gotten lost in translation and have forgotten over time. These stories are the first from Haruki Murakami and just shows you the pure genius from this author. It makes me wonder how many other books that have to wait to be translated and what we are missing. After Murakami got these stories published in the 70's, he sold his night club and became a full time author. The best career choice that he ever made.